


Heat of the Moment

by BlueNightmare



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: F/F, Fingerfucking, Lesbian Sex, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Masturbation, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 09:53:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11598177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueNightmare/pseuds/BlueNightmare
Summary: After Alisha's story comes to an end, tensions finally boil over once again. The same room at the same inn, but with no audience and a very different result.





	Heat of the Moment

At first, it was a comfort thing.

Alisha Diphda's life had been a relatively easy one until the last few months. In her dual roles as a princess born to a mere commoner and as a knight in a realm that rarely knew conflict, the pure-hearted young woman had rarely known hardship beyond the persistent feelings of loneliness and uselessness that haunted her gentle soul. Hers hadn’t always been the happiest life, but Alisha’s needs were always cared for, and she had never lost the adoration of the people of Hyland even if they loved her from a distance.

Then, over the course of a few tumultuous weeks, it had all fallen apart before her eyes. 

Despite her best efforts, Hyland had gone to war with the neighboring empire of Rolance, and she could only feel that the blood of countless fallen soldiers was on her hands. Her beloved mentor had betrayed her - had been betraying her all along - and Maltran's death had done nothing to heal the wound that the older woman had deliberately left behind in Alisha’s trusting heart. She had met the Shepherd Sorey and made wonderful new friends, but she had not been able to accompany them on their long journey across the land... and once their task was finished, not all of them had returned.

The emotional blows had rained down without cease, and Alisha had struggled to cope. 

The war had ended, thankfully short-lived, but by then the council that had governed the nation had disappeared without a trace. In their place, it had been Alisha who had become a ray of hope her suffering people, but every day it became more difficult to put one foot in front of the other. The losses she had suffered through clung to her body as if they were physical weights, threatening to drag her down into the mire, and she had nobody left to turn to with her worries and her fears.

For the citizens’ sake she wore an optimistic smile and saved her tears for her pillow, but each sunrise brought her breaking point a fraction closer. It was all she could do to stay upright.

Then, when she had needed somebody the most, Rose had come back into her life.

~ ~ ~

In the beginning, the red-haired assassin's reappearance hadn’t been much of a relief to Alisha at all. When Rose returned to Hyland without explanation alongside the Seraphs Lailah and Edna, Alisha had expected to receive answers to all of the questions that had been bouncing around in her head from the day she had last seen her, but instead she had been met with a metaphorical brick wall.

Rose had flatly refused to tell her anything. Not a word about her travels or the outcome, or even why Sorey was no longer with her or where he might have gone. The assassin had been cold towards Alisha, utterly disdainful, all but renouncing their previous friendship for reasons she hadn’t seen fit to share. She’d showered Alisha with insults that had cut her like blades, dismissed her as a worthless child and tried to leave her behind without so much as a goodbye.

Now, Alisha knew that Rose had only been trying to protect her from learning Sorey’s fate, in her own awkward way, and they had made up their differences when the normally cheerful redhead had finally revealed the truth. At the time, however, Alisha hadn't understood, and it had _hurt_. She hadn't known Rose as well as she would have liked, but she had considered the Sparrowfeather a friend, someone she could turn to, and Rose had virtually spat in her face. After everything else, it had nearly broken her.

Eventually, things had improved. Alisha and Rose came to know each other better, even formed a Shepherd’s pact between them, but it had still had taken quite some time for their relationship to heal.

Then, on the night they returned to the city of Lastonbell...

~ ~ ~

Sweat-soaked sheets clung to Alisha's bare skin, twisting around her barely-clothed body as she struggled to find a comfortable position in her bed at the Randgriz Inn.

No. It was no use. The air was too hot, and her thoughts too turbulent, for sleep to be in her reach tonight. Sighing into the humid darkness, she stared up at the ceiling in frustration, brushing strands of pale blonde hair away from her sticky forehead. They were leaving town tomorrow and she would need to be rested for the journey, but her over-active brain seemed to have other ideas, conspiring with the weather to keep her awake.

A slight breeze blew in through the opened window, and the idea of taking a walk took root in her head, seducing her more with each passing second. It wouldn't take long, she told herself, and she wouldn't be in any danger. It could help her get her head on straight, set her mind at ease. Before she knew it, her bare feet were swinging out of the unholy mess she had made of her sheets and padding onto the floorboards, the sweat-slick curves of her almost nude body catching the silvery moonlight as she fumbled about for her traveling outfit. As refreshing as the notion of standing in the open air in nothing but her pale pink panties and bra might have sounded, she had never been quite _that_ naive.

Only a moment after her searching hands finally located the pile of white and blue fabric she had sought, something _thumped_ against the wall, and Alisha went still.

Green eyes darted to the door at the side of her room - the sound had come from the adjoining room, the one where Rose was staying. Alisha had thought that the assassin would have been asleep long ago, but perhaps she was having as much difficulty sleeping as Alisha was. It was a sweltering night, after all.

Forgetting her thoughts of midnight strolls for a moment, the blonde princess made her way across her darkened room and grasped the door handle, opening the door with a mournful squeak from stubborn hinges and peering inside. "Rose?"

" _Holy crap_ do you not know how to knock?!"

By the time Alisha's eyes found Rose in the gloom her friend was already in motion, snatching at her rumpled sheet and drawing it up over her curled-up form. The red-haired woman was sitting on her disaster area of a bed with her back against the nearby wall, likely accounting for the dull sound Alisha had heard, but try as she might to cover herself with the sheet, the brief glimpse of Rose she had received was burned into the princess's mind. 

She had seen enough to know that Rose hadn't bothered with a bra tonight, and that while her hands might now be clutched white-knuckled around the tangled linen, one of them had moments ago been delicately cupped beneath a snowy breast, the other shoved down the front of her skimpy black underwear.

"I-I'm sorry!" Her eyes wide, Alisha instinctively stepped backward, away from Rose and the bed and, inadvertently, the door. "I just heard you were awake, and I couldn't sleep either, and I... I just, um..." She paused. Lowered the hands that had been hovering defensively in front of herself, as if she had been expecting a dagger to fly in her direction. This wasn't the first time she had seen Rose without her clothes on; they'd been traveling together for weeks, for goodness' sake. "I guess you couldn't sleep either? It's far too warm tonight..."

"Alisha, _why are you still here?!_ "

It took her a moment to realise that Rose was still glaring at her over the top of her sheet, blue eyes narrowed, what little she could see of the assassin's bare body quivering with rage beneath the linen. "O-oh... um, did I interrupt something?" she ventured nervously, that cold stare leaving her feeling like something Rose intended to scrape from the sole of her boot.

" _Yes._ " Rose's tone was as frigid as her stare.

Alisha swallowed, lowering her head in a solemn bow, falling back on years of royal etiquette training by force of habit. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Uh- _huh._ " Rose's glare didn't falter, boring into her soul. "Sooo, you want to leave me alone for a minute?"

Suddenly, the door that connected their rooms looked _incredibly_ inviting, and Alisha found herself edging back towards it like a scolded puppy exiled from the house, drooping under the weight of her friend's displeasure. "I'm sorry," she mumbled again, her guilty eyes lowered as she reached the door-frame... only to lift them again at the last moment, turning back to face the red-haired woman with a furrowed brow. "But, um... what _are_ you doing?"

"... _Seriously?!_ You _really_ need to ask!?" All of Rose's _considerable_ pent-up frustration and tension exploded, her hands rising to rub at her temples as if Alisha had become more than a metaphorical headache. Her neglected sheet slid down her body to pool around her waist, but if Rose cared that her breasts were once again laid bare she didn't show it, expelling an aggravated sigh and staring incredulously at the younger girl. "Don't tell me you've never... no, no, of _course_ you haven't. I knew you were sheltered, but this is ridiculous."

Alisha's blank stare only annoyed her more.

"Arrrgh!" Fingers tore at soft red hair before slamming back to the mattress as frustrated fists. "I was touching myself, okay?! Down _there_! You caught me, and this is really embarrassing, and you standing there like _that_ is really not making me any less horny, and I want you to leave! Just _go_!"

Moments passed in stunned silence. 

It took several seconds for Rose's sleepy, frustrated, overheated brain to realize what she had just said, her fingertips brushing against her lips as she mentally played those words back. Half of that she hadn't wanted to say, and the other half she really, _really_ hadn't wanted to. Snapping her eyes closed to block out the sight of Alisha, she took a deep, anxious breath to steady herself, then opened them again, daring to hope that the naive young princess hadn't followed her muddle-headed rant...

Alisha's pale green eyes told Rose with one wide stare that she would indeed have to live with her words.

The younger girl was grateful that the silver moonlight made a secret of her scarlet face, but there was no hiding the tremor in her voice as she finally found the courage to speak. "I... do you mean to say...?"

No, Rose _hadn't_ , but now she was stuck with it. Struggling to gain control of herself, to ignore the hammering of her heart and the heat of her self-inflicted arousal, she belatedly pulled the sheet back up over her breasts, keeping it pinned there with an arm around her chest. She felt like an absolute mess, sweaty and agitated and desperate for the sleep she had tried to diddle herself into, but right now there were more important things to deal with than her delicate condition. "...Any chance we can just forget I said that?" she murmured, brushing damp red hair out of her eyes with her free hand just to have something to do other than flitting her eyes in any direction but Alisha's. 

"I can leave if you want me to." 

How Alisha managed to keep her voice steady, even she didn't know. She hadn't thought anything of being half-naked in front of Rose before, the assassin being one of only a handful of people that she was almost comfortable unclothed around, but now she found herself lifting an arm to cover her brassiere-cupped bosom in what she hoped was a casual, inconspicuous motion, her other hand hanging nervously in front of the crotch of her panties, her fingers anxiously curled. She would never have entered a boy's room dressed like this - even she, naive as she was, knew what that would imply and the attention it would invite - but she had never expected Rose to look at her the same way, and now she wasn't sure _what_ to think. What to feel.

"If you don't want to leave, then I want you to stay." Rose wasn't looking at her when she finally spoke, but there was a definite spark of warmth amid the caution in her voice. Relief, too, and Alisha's heart eased a little as the edge in the air dulled just a fraction. "Look, I don't want to make this weird or anything. I mean, I guess it's a little late for that, but I just... I'm sorry. I _really_ shouldn't have let that slip. I was just frustrated, and I... uh..."

"So you didn't mean it?" Alisha shifted nervously, uncertain whether she was disappointed or not, surprising herself with the realisation that she might not entirely have minded. For a brief moment she had felt _wanted_ , in a far more personal way than as a symbol or a protector, and it had felt _nice_. Even she could tell that there had been a more sexual implication to it than there had ever been in her closeness with Maltran or with Sorey and the seraphs, and it left her with a flittering wisp of unease in her belly, but she had grown enough in the last few months that the notion didn't leave her a blushing, stammering wreck. "I don't really... bother you? Like this?"

Again, a pause of several moments, before Rose lifted her eyes and stared straight at Alisha with all artifice cut out of her clear blue gaze. "I didn't say that. Have you _looked_ at yourself in a mirror recently? You're not exactly unattractive, and if I'm on my own, thinking _those_ kind of thoughts, and a girl like you comes into my room in her underwear, I'm gonna start having those kind of thoughts about _her_. So if you could... uh... put a shirt on or something..."

"I-I'll be right back." Alisha scrambled out the door and back into her room as fast as her feet would carry her, her cheeks burning hot, her stomach performing dizzying acrobatic feats. Her mind whirled like crazy as she fumbled in the dark again, clutching at the blue, white and gold of her deliberately ostentatious corset and clumsily slipping it over her head, wincing as she noted just how much of her cleavage the bodice revealed. Well, it was better than her bra alone, she decided as she reached for her ruffled white skirt, stumbling repeatedly as she tried to step into it, her nerves betraying her. "J-just a minute!" she called, hurriedly tugging the waistband up her thighs and settling it in place. Oh, of all the times to look like a fool...

When she returned to Rose's room, the assassin was still seated on her bed, clasping her practical black bra behind her back. She gave Alisha a sardonic grin, looking her up and down but keeping her thoughts to herself. "If I'd known you were going to hurt yourself getting dressed, you could've borrowed some of my stuff."

"I'm just fine, thank you." Lifting her chin in defiance, Alisha seated herself at the foot of Rose's bed, the tangled, sweat-soaked sheets crumpled between them, the tiniest of barriers. "So... I, um... I wasn't aware that you..." She swallowed apprehensively, once again keenly aware that she was making herself look, if not like an idiot, then a girl receiving 'the talk' from her mother. "That you liked girls like that."

"I don't _hate_ 'em." Rose's nervous laugh sounded a little forced, though her faint smile seemed more genuine to Alisha's eye. "Let's just say I have a... variety of interests. I don't really make a habit of talking about it, but now you know."

"I... I see." Alisha nodded carefully, lost in thought. Romance had never really been been on the cards for her, but while her daydreams of fairytale love had almost always featured a man sweeping her off her feet, the idea of a relationship with a woman wasn't particularly unpleasant to her. Alisha's upbringing had been rather morally strict, even the fleeting kisses that she had experienced in her mind alone seeming scandalously illicit to her adolescent mind, and since then she hadn't given a great deal of thought to relationships and the like until she had met Sorey. _That_ had confirmed that she _definitely_ had an interest in boys, but she hadn't given much though to her preferences beyond that until now.

Having Rose sitting across from her on the bed, clad only in her underwear, a sheen of sweat and a tangle of sheets around her legs, had a way of providing hints that her nethers hadn't failed to pick up on.

"So, um..." Alisha's heart thundered inside of her chest. Her mind flailed about for the words that fit with her feelings, a proper way of forming her thoughts into a question, but nothing she could come up with was better than the direct approach. Finally, with a deep breath to gather her courage, she pressed ahead. "Does this mean that you... like me?"

Rose sighed at that, rocking backwards and bringing her knees up to her chest. "Not... in the way you're thinking. I'm not in love with you. Not saying I _couldn't_ be someday, but... okay, not the point. I'm not ready to even _think_ about something like that. I just..." She bit her lip, considering whether to finish her sentence. "...Certain bits of me want me to jump your bones. That's it. So, feel free to be grossed out or whatever," she added, finally losing her nerve and glancing away from Alisha, as if she anticipated just that.

She had expected to feel the bed shift with Alisha's weight, and it did, but while she had assumed that she would hear retreating footfalls against the floorboards... instead, impossibly, she found the blonde princess crawling _closer_ to her, stomping the wall of tangled sheets flat beneath her knees.

To Alisha it felt as if her ribcage had decided to shrink, her chest tightening beneath the weight of a tangled mass of emotions that she could barely begin to unravel. Uncertainty was there, even fear, but an almost giddy exhilaration accompanied it, overwhelmed it, leaving a gentle warmth in her heart the likes of which she had never felt before. Rose wanted her, and even if she didn't understand anything more than the basics of the interactions the assassin had in mind, her body understood, conspiring with her heart to urge her onward across the mattress.

"Alisha...?" Rose blinked back at her, still curled into a ball against the headboard of the bed, barely believing what she was seeing. Why wasn't the sheltered princess stammering apologies and scrambling away from her? "W-what're you doing?"

"I'm _not_ grossed out, Rose." Alisha was blushing like crazy, and Rose's keen instincts detected a faint tremble in the princess knight's body as she drew herself into a loose sitting position right in front of the assassin, but her voice was clear and firm and her pale green eyes unwavering, as they had been that day a few weeks ago when she had declared her answer to the world."I do like you. A lot. And I... I don't know much about _that_ kind of thing, but I... I'm not completely averse to doing something like that. With you."

Rose's mouth fell open. Utterly lost for words, she gaped like a dead fish for seconds that felt like minutes to her stunned, barely-functioning brain, desperately trying to regain her mental footing before she made a fool of herself. Alisha _liked_ her?! The princess of Hyland, heroine of the land, paragon of good, liked _her_?! "W-where the heck did _that_ come from?!" she spluttered when she finally regained control of herself, still reeling, suddenly _much_ less sure of herself, but flattered and happy, too. "What happened to the... to the innocent little goody-two-shoes who's been following me around like a puppy dog?"

" _I'm not a child, Rose_!" Alisha set her jaw, her eyes flashing with ire, her hands knotting into fists against the sheets. Okay, so she'd touched a nerve, and the glare the princess was giving her was as hurt as it was indignant. "I'm tired of being the 'innocent goody-two-shoes', okay?! I might not know everything about... about these things, but I do want to know! So if you _want_ to do those things with me... then..."

She trailed off, and Rose took the opportunity to pounce, leaning forward to meet Alisha with a gleam in her cunning blue eyes. Her breaths were shallow with want, her heart racing every bit as rapidly as Alisha's, but she couldn't resist the chance to tease the blonde knight a little more. "Those things, huh? You sure you want that? I mean, if you can't even _say_ it..."

"S-say what?" Flustered, Alisha turned her blushing cheeks away, and Rose had to fight her baser instincts to stop herself pinning the adorable girl to the mattress right then and there. "I-I, uh..."

"Say you want me to have sex with you." Rose was as relentless now as she was when chasing down a mark, and her pursuit of Alisha sent many of the same feelings coursing through her body, the exhiliration of the hunt. Of course, there were _different_ feelings mixed in as well, feelings that would have been a burden at those other times. "You want me to take you seriously? Say it. Go on, I'm listening."

Was it even possible to go as white as a sheet and blush like a sunset at the same time? If it was, the scandalized Alisha was pulling it off, her lips tracing the words but her tongue refusing to speak them. "I, uh... that is to say, I would like... um..."

"Alisha. Just say it." Unimpressed, wondering if she'd just dealt herself out of the chance to spend the rest of the night prising all sorts of interesting noises out of the inexperienced princess, Rose propped her head up with an open hand, trying not to let either amusement or exasperation seep into her voice. "Nobody else can hear us. You're not going to get in trouble, nobody's going to pull you over their knee and spank you because you said a naughty word-" Rose's heart rate spiked. _Wow, wrong choice of words._ "Be a big girl and say it."

"Iwanttohavesexwithyou." The words fell out of Alisha's mouth in a mumbled tangle, as if she had wanted to spit them all out at once before she had time to change her mind, but her earnest, honest stare left Rose with no doubt that she meant them. "I do. I just... I'm nervous, okay!? I don't know what to do! Nobody ever told me! So I... uh..." She lowered her eyes, fumbling for the next words, and _there_ was the pure, innocent princess, catching up with her runaway curiosity at last. "W-w-would you...?"

"What sort of education did the castle even _give_ you?" Rose sank her forehead into her palm, but her mind was barely on what she was saying. How could it be, with her beautiful, sweet-hearted friend practically _offering_ herself to her? She could barely sit still, her stomach twisting itself into knots - the good kind - and the heat she had stirred within herself with her fingers alone had built into a throbbing blaze. "Never mind. Look... if you really want to learn, then I'll teach ya. I've... kinda been wanting to do it since last time we were here, anyway." Although some of the lessons she had imagined herself teaching Alisha were shorter and sharper than others...

"I trust you." Her pale gaze was solemn, but Alisha's hands in contrast fidgeted anxiously with the ruffled hem of her skirt, as if she didn't know what to do with them. "I'll do what you say, so... please. If you could... take charge..." Again she faltered, blushing fiercely and staring down at her thighs, but Rose knew that she wasn't about to back out.

"All right." Her cheeks nearly as red as her hair, Rose gave her friend an encouraging smile, willing her own heartbeat to ease off on the hammering before she had a heart attack. "If you're gonna do what I say here, then... kiss me. Go on."

Somehow, even after directly asking Rose to have sex with her, Alisha's response was wide-eyed and aghast. "You want me to...?!"

"C'mon, now. Already?" Rose barely held back a groan, although the princess's reluctance had been entirely expected. "You sure you're up for this? We don't have to do anything if you really don't want to."

"N-no, I..." Alisha took a deep breath of humid air, in and out, but she looked no less shaky for having ostensibly calmed herself. "I'll do it. I want to do it. I just didn't think... I didn't imagine this... I wasn't prepared for this." She flirted with coherence almost by accident, the sheltered young girl with a head full of fairytale romances resurfacing. The last thing she had imagined back then was that her first kiss would be with a girl, let alone a girl like _Rose_ \- cheerful, loud, blunt, a _killer_ \- but even after the vicious cruelty she had shown Alisha the last time they had visited this very inn, mocking her and trying her damndest to crush the girl's spirit just so the assassin wouldn't have to tell her the truth, Alisha had developed a bond of trust with Rose far different to those she had shared with anyone else, and while she wasn't ready to call her affection for Rose 'love', she was beginning to realise that it went beyond the bounds of mere friendship.

That, and the disappointed impatience in Rose's watchful eyes, spurred Alisha to cast aside her needling misgivings, close her eyes and slowly lean her body forward, pursing her lips into a soft pink pucker.

 _...Are you kidding me?_ Somehow Rose found the willpower to keep herself from breaking into snorting laughter. Of _course_ this would be what pretty, pretty princess Alisha thought about when she thought of kissing. Of _course_. Almost childishly innocent, like an illustration from one of the picture books the girl had surely spent her formative years poring over in her Ladylake manor.

Well, if Alisha thought she was going to get a cute little smooch on the lips, she had another thing coming. Rose was way too wound-up thanks to the sticky night-time heat and the blonde girl's interruption of her private time, and she was in no mood to take it easy on her. She launched herself forward, her hands grasping at the sides of Alisha's head to hold her in place as she brought their lips crashing together, smothering the princess's mouth with a firm, forceful, searing kiss.

Alisha's eyes shot open, her surprised yelp swallowed up by Rose's hungry mouth as her chaste first kiss was twisted into something far more overwhelming, but she didn't even try to pull away. Instead, she surrendered, her lips moving gently against Rose's assertive mouth, her eyelids sagging shut once again as the inexperienced maiden slowly felt her way through the unfamiliar sensations. Her heart fluttered like a startled bird, a heat greater than anything the humid night could muster spreading throughout her body as if hot liquid had spilled inside of her. 

When Rose drew away at last, her damp lips curved into a superior grin, she took as much pleasure in watching the shellshocked, furiously blushing girl gasping for breath as she had in the kiss. As much as she liked Alisha, shutting her up was a satisfying achievement... though the kiss hadn't been half bad either, despite the younger girl's clumsy attempt at returning her passion. "So? What'd you think?" she chirped, trying to act as nonchalant as if she _hadn't_ just kissed the princess of Hyland. "You still want to keep going, or was that too much for ya?"

Alisha didn't answer right away, her fingertips tracing her lips in silent awe. That... hadn't been how she had pictured her first kiss, or _any_ kiss, the scorching need in Rose's mouth shattering her illusions of delicate, gentle lip-locks. This had been something else entirely, but as her heart slowed down to merely supersonic speed, she found herself giving Rose a stilted, stunned nod. "Y-yes. I mean... yes, I want to keep... t-that was... um..."

For a moment Rose considered letting her stammer on, the stupefied look on her face almost adorable enough to distract the red-haired woman from the blossoming warmth between her thighs. Ultimately, though, no expression was _that_ adorable, and she interrupted the breadcrumb trail of syllables Alisha was leaving in her wake, letting her eyes slip down to the princess's hastily assembled outfit. She had been the one to dress Alisha in it for the first time, an encounter that _might_ have left her with a few interesting memories to dwell on later, but now... "Okay, then. How about you take those clothes off?"

"My clothes?!" Alisha stared down at herself as if Rose had told her she was on fire, oddly shocked by the idea of stripping down for a girl who'd blithely wandered in here in her underwear just minutes ago. "I, uh... I guess that's what people do, isn't it? When they, um... make love."

"Well, at least you know _that_ much." Rose was only half-joking, but tried not to let on, offering an immediate distraction by slipping her hands behind her back and seeking out the clasp of her brassiere. It was only slightly more difficult to work the hooks loose with her fingers sweaty and shaking, and within seconds she was taking the simple black bra down her shoulders and letting it slide free of her arms, lazily dropping it onto the sheets. "See? I'm showing solidarity. You diplomat types are all about that, right?"

Alisha swallowed, shyly trying to keep her gaze away from Rose's breasts even though she was practically _invited_. She had never been entirely comfortable with nudity, hers or anyone else's, and Rose's nonchalance about it when they had bathed on their journey had been almost intimidating to the strait-laced princess. Still, Rose _had_ seen it all before, and something about her friend's cocky grin and reckless abandon eased Alisha's uncertainty enough for her to lift her ornate corset over her head and let it fall to the bed, stripping her skirt off before she had the chance to think too hard.

"Aaaand right back to where we started." Rose didn't share a shred of Alisha's shyness, blatantly ogling her friend's modest chest as she tugged her own panties down her legs, leaving herself completely, temptingly bare. "Anytime you're ready. If it helps, close your eyes and pretend I'm not here."

Alisha didn't feel the need to go quite _that_ far, but her fingers made it no further than unhooking the clasp of her bra before she stilled, holding the loose ends in place with her hands as she peered at Rose in search of yet further approval. "Are you sure this is okay?"

"Okay? I'd strip you myself if I thought you'd hold still long enough!" Rose smirked, less than half-joking this time. "Seriously, none of your attendants or your adoring public are here to faint at the sight of the royal boobs. Hell, they'd probably be glad their princess is getting some. I mean, they all love you, so they'd all want you to do what made you happy, right?"

"...You're right." Alisha nodded, a relieved smile rising to her lips. That had been what she had needed to hear, and she wasted no further time in shrugging off her bra and ridding herself of her panties, fighting off the urge to cover herself up as a very pleased Rose began to study her newly-unclothed body.

She ignored the self-conscious alarm bells ringing in her head, forcing herself to sit quietly and still as her friend's eyes explored where they wished, from her small, rosy-nippled breasts to the faint blonde curls between her thighs and the soft pink folds beneath, blushing deeply at the lingering, examining attention. The hot little thrill dancing within her chest threatened to spiral out of control from the scrutiny alone, let alone the idea of Rose actually _touching_ her...

"...Okay." Rose leaned back a little, satisfied, as if she had been searching for something and found it. "Now, lie down on your back for me," she urged, shifting over to make room. "Then, I guess I should show you some stuff."

Remembering that she had promised to do what Rose told her to, Alisha obeyed, scrambling around on the bed before slowly lowering herself back towards the mattress. The warm cotton of the lower sheet clung to her sweaty skin on contact, her blonde hair spilling out beneath her head as her pale green eyes came to focus on the woman now looking down on her from above, her lips curving into a nervous but genuine smile.

"Good girl." Seeing no further need to restrain herself, Rose climbed on top of the vulnerable Alisha and straddled her hips, pinning her against the mattress, gleefully grinning down at the open-mouthed princess as if daring her to resist. The night was still uncomfortably hot, but Rose welcomed the gentle warmth of the younger girl's body heat against her skin, letting it mingle with the remains of the fire her fingers had stoked within herself. Alisha was absolutely at her mercy, and the look in her wide, innocent eyes sent primal excitement flushing through Rose's chest. The stubborn little upstart belonged to _her_ now.

Drunk on power, she lowered her face close to Alisha's, her nose almost touching the noble's, but if the blonde was expecting another heated kiss, she was going to be disappointed. "Lie still," she commanded, whispering the words against Alisha's cheek, her hot breath sweeping against Alisha's anxious face. "Just stay down there and _feel_. Your first time, let me do the work."

Alisha nodded wordlessly, nervous but resolute, but her resolve lasted only the handful of seconds it took for Rose's palm to find her chest. The assassin's clever fingers eagerly spread out around a breast to cup and squeeze, claiming the small peak as no other had, but she was barely given a second to enjoy her conquest before Alisha's hand flew up to snatch at her wrist. "R-Rose!"

"Hey!" Wrenching her wrist out of Alisha's grip with minimal effort, Rose glared down at the wildly blushing blonde, put out by the sudden act of rebellion. "What gives?! You can't be _that_ sensitive!"

"I-I'm sorry!" Alisha turned her face away in shame, biting down on her lower lip and letting her hands drop back to the sheets. "I didn't mean to- it j-just happened! So, um, p-please continue!"

Her attempts at maintaining formality even now were as cute as they were ridiculous, and Rose's lips twisted into a fresh smirk. It didn't matter how regal Alisha tried to sound when she was naked and disheveled and sprawled out on the bed beneath Rose, her body heaving with anxious, shallow breaths. There was only so much that princessly decorum could cover up for, and Alisha was well beyond that right now. 

"So, you're perfectly okay with me doing _this_?" Barely holding back a gleeful grin, Rose let her hands leap into action, one pinning Alisha's wrist down to the bed, the other returning to the blonde knight's chest and capturing her breast in a firm but gentler grip. The girl jerked beneath Rose's thighs, her whole body tensing into stiffness, her eyes squeezing shut as her breath caught in her throat, but this time she didn't resist Rose's explorations, trying her best to lie completely still as the more experienced girl blatantly felt her up in search of a reaction. A thin, ragged moan slipped past her lips as her body began to respond in ways she had never felt before, as Rose's fingers and palm traced and pressed and grazed...

Then, with a wicked smile, Rose dipped her head low and caught Alisha's hardening nipple between her lips, drawing it into her mouth with a swift, sharp suck.

" _Nnnnnn!_ " Being touched like this felt good, better than Alisha had let herself imagine, but her body reacted on its own again, the hand that Rose hadn't trapped beneath her own rising from the sheets to shove at the side of the red-haired girl's head. She wasn't used to this, and despite everything Rose had said, part of her still insisted that this wasn't right, that she _shouldn't_ be feeling like this, not now, not with Rose, not in an inn like some cheap street harlot-

Rose's hard, disbelieving glare stilled all of her other thoughts, turning the princess's blood to ice.

"Alisha." Gone was the familiar, cheerful tone of her friend, replaced by steel severity, and Alisha imagined that this was the voice that Rose's victims heard seconds before their deaths. "Do you want me to stop?"

"N-no..." Alisha knew how pitiful she sounded, but she _felt_ pitiful, like a disobedient child being scolded by her mother. Of course, Alisha had never _been_ a disobedient child, and the unfamiliar feeling left her feeling even more ashamed of herself. "I'm sorry, I just-"

"Give me your hands."

Barely daring to disobey, Alisha lifted her hands the moment her wrist was released, presenting them to Rose with her brow furrowed in confusion. Was this some sort of punishment?

Without a word, Rose took hold of Alisha's wrists and pressed them together, staring sternly down at the anxious princess as she snatched up her discarded pink bra with her free hand. Moving with the speed and precision of someone far too used to binding hands, she wrapped the skimpy garment tight around Alisha's wrists, lashing them together and knotting the makeshift restraints before triumphantly slamming her prisoner's hands to the sheets above her wide-eyed head. "Stay down," the assassin snapped, and Alisha didn't budge a centimeter as Rose made a grab for her own bra and leaned over the younger woman, the sight of Rose's bare breasts hanging inches above her head stunning her into stillness long enough for the redhead to fasten Alisha's bound wrists to the headboard with her black undergarment. 

As Rose withdrew, raking her fingers over the princess's shoulders and breasts as she returned to her sitting position, Alisha whined and squirmed and twisted her wrists against her new restraints, tugging and jerking her arms, her resistance born more from mental discomfort than physical. "Um... Rose? You don't have to tie me up!"

"I think I do." With an intolerably smug smile slashing across her face, Rose took a moment to gloat, admiring her work and the woman trapped within it. Ohh, it was _good_ to be on top. "If this is the only way you'll behave yourself, so be it. Now I can do whatever I want to you, and you can't stop me."

"Rose..." A tremor ran through Alisha's voice, the wild fear in her pale green eyes making Rose feel guilty for a whole two seconds. "What are you going to d- _eeeep_!" Her question fragmented into a sharp little squeal as Rose's lips found her nipple again, teeth and tongue dancing against it as she drew it into her mouth and lavished it with wet, warm attention. Although she choked out a trembling, lustful gasp in response, Alisha's arms fought her makeshift restraints more vigorously than ever, thrashing against her bonds so violently that Rose began to dread that the knotted undergarments might tear under the strain. 

When they didn't, and when Alisha showed no signs of genuinely asking her to stop, Rose intensified her heated onslaught, grinding her tongue into the princess's hard little nub, lashing it back and forth, sucking and releasing and sucking again. Alisha whimpered and huffed, her struggles dwindling as the moments passed, and when Rose let her nipple drop from her lips with a wet little pop and raised her head, she found the young princess's face sweat-slick and feverishly flushed, her eyes clamped shut, her breathing coming in strained hisses. Oh, she was sensitive, all right.

Well, sensitive or not, she wasn't going to get any mercy from Rose. Shifting her attentions to the breast she had been neglecting until now, Rose pressed her lips around the nipple and teased it relentlessly with her clever tongue, her eyes locked on Alisha's lust-twisted face as she eagerly stoked the younger girl's excitement. Her hand, freed from the necessity of pinning Alisha down, slid into place over the saliva-soaked mound her mouth had left behind and gave the hard little bud they found there a swift, sharp pinch, sending the poor girl's whining into a mewling crescendo, her eyes snapping open and staring in a silent accusation of betrayal.

"What? Didn't like that?" Wide-eyed innocence was more Alisha's thing, and Rose's attempt at it looked and sounded just as mocking at it was meant to be.

"No!" Alisha glared back at her, though there was more frustration than anger in her pale green gaze. "It hurt!"

"Yeah, I guess it would." Dropping any pretense of remorse, Rose drew back a finger and gave the affronted nipple a flick, her fingernail snapping against the wet nub. "Want me to kiss it better?"

"Ow!" Alisha winced, trying to twist her body away from Rose's cruel digits, but the other woman's warm, sweaty weight pressing down on her made escape an impossibility. Arousal was sinking its claws into her in earnest now, shoving her girlish embarrassment out of her mind and replacing it with need. Even the tiny flash of pain was nice, in a way she couldn't quite describe, but a frustration she only half-understood was building up inside of her, demanding much more than subtle teasing. "Rose, can you... um..."

A sadistic smirk spreading across her face, Rose let the uncomfortable silence drag on for several moments, delighting in the twitches of discomfort playing across Alisha's strained face. She knew exactly what the sheltered princess wanted, and knew that she was still too self-conscious to ask for it, too naive even to know what to ask _for_. 

Then, finally, guilt reared its head, and Rose relented. She hadn't expected to be finishing this quite so early, but maybe she should have allowed for Alisha's inexperience. "You want me to go for it, right?"

Alisha didn't understand exactly what she was approving, but her touch-starved body told her enough to know that she wanted it. She nodded, face solemn.

"Okay..." Sliding down Alisha's body, Rose gently drew the princess's thighs apart, hoping she didn't notice how badly her usually steady hands were shaking. The blonde girl's eyes clamped shut again as her core was lewdly revealed, her body stiff and still, waiting in trepidation for something she wanted and feared, and Rose let her fingers slide down her captive's belly to the thin little nest of blonde hair between her legs, teasing the soft curls as they passed. "If you tell me to stop, I will, but if you don't, I'm taking you all the way. You okay with that?"

"Mmhmm." Alisha's eyes opened just a crack, as if she couldn't find the willpower to do more, and Rose wasn't even sure whether the girl had nodded or if her eyes had played a trick on her. Still, her assent could not have been clearer, and Rose traced a solitary finger down to the tender flesh of Alisha's entrance, smiling wickedly as the blonde maiden squirmed and groaned at her touch. If her reaction to a little teasing was _that_ emphatic, Rose looked forward to seeing what a good, solid fucking would draw out of the innocent princess.

Tentative at first, her eyes locked on Alisha's scrunched-up face, she slipped the tip of her finger into her pupil's inner softness, probing gently and finding telltale wetness within. The virgin's breathless mewl encouraged her, urging her onward, and Rose was only too happy to oblige, sinking her finger in deeper. The movement was perhaps a fraction harder and faster than necessary, earning her a yelp and a twisting of hips, but Rose chose to be selfish, enjoying bringing the repressed princess undone and dragging her down to the level of mere mortals. Why shouldn't she get _some_ pleasure out of tonight?

Alisha was biting down on her lip, accustoming herself to new sensations, and Rose was swift to feed her more of them. She slipped a second finger inside, taking advantage of the knight's mounting wetness to slide it neatly in alongside the first, and it didn't go unnoticed, a breaking cry fleeing Alisha's lips as she felt her body pushed to adjust. Her eyes were open now, staring at Rose half-lidded, watching but saying nothing lest she break the spell. 

Her breaths came fast and hard as Rose moved her fingers within her, manipulating her weak point to break her defenses, her bound hands fisting above her head as the assassin worked her magic. Warm, tingling, throbbing pleasure began to spread, so unfamiliar that they frightened her at first, a plea for Rose to stop resting just behind her lips, never quite flying out. When she did open her mouth again, it was with a heated, twisted gasp, then another, then tight-pursed lips and then a third, louder than the others, breaking free in defiance of her efforts to hold it back. She was powerless before Rose's busy, clever fingers, riding the other girl's rhythm as a helpless passenger, aching and trembling and slick with more than just sweat.

Rose was playing her like an instrument, and the red-haired girl knew it. Reveled in it. Picking up the pace to make her squeal, then slowing down just to hear her whine, she toyed with Alisha to her heart's content, working her over, thumbing her clit, shifting herself up to raid the princess's soft, vulnerable breasts with pinching, squeezing fingers without once easing her assault on the poor girl's sex.

It was too much for her, as Rose had known it would be, and she screamed, as Rose had known she would. The assassin's sweaty palm was there in an instant, clamping down over Alisha's mouth to gag her, pressing her lips into her teeth and holding her down, trapping her ardent cries inside. The pressure didn't stop Alisha from making all sorts of sounds, merely dampened them, reducing their volume so that Rose might keep them for herself.

Alisha's eyes pleaded with Rose, begging her for what she didn't understand but knew she wanted. She was bowstring-tense, breathing in gusts, a puppet on a string squirming for Rose's amusement, and the red-haired girl drew it out as long as she could, making Alisha yearn for it, twisting her body in search of release. 

For a moment, the prospect of denying her her prize flitted through Rose's head, cruelest vengeance for the orgasm Alisha had stolen from her... but as seductive as she found the mental image of the princess of Hyland naked, curled up and clumsily, frantically rubbing herself in desperation, even Rose's cruelty had its limits. She let her prisoner have her way, driving her fingers hard and deep and flicking at Alisha's clit until she came, a strangled scream exploding into Rose's palm as the blonde girl's body tightened and twitched, riding out the first orgasm of her life.

It was so picture perfect that Rose wished she could have kept her like this forever.

She curled her fingers one last time, then removed them, sliding them free from the mess the innocent girl had made of herself, but it wasn't until Alisha's orgasm had passed completely that Rose dared to remove her sweat-slick hand from its place over the panting princess's mouth.

_Okay. That was a lot louder than I expected._

Her whole body heaving with the need for breath, Alisha slowly came down from the heights of release, her stunned green eyes locked on the ceiling above. Freed from the confines of Rose's palm, her lips slowly slipped open, sucking in much-needed air as her mind tumbled back towards sensibility. The tension in her still-restrained body began to leech out of her muscles, leaving her sagging against the mattress, utterly exhausted.

"You... you didn't have to..." she gasped, her indignation plain despite the dizzy weakness of her voice. "W-with your other hand..."

"Yeah, I think I did." Wiping her sticky fingers against Alisha's inner thigh, Rose climbed back into the dazed blonde's field of view, smiling down at her in gleeful satisfaction. Part of her, the despicable part that had enjoyed bullying Alisha in this very inn just weeks ago, was loving the sight of the proper, stubborn princess lying spent beneath her, hair a mess, skin slick and hot, wrists bound in a tangle of their underwear, breathless and speechless. That part of her had loved clamping her hand over Alisha's mouth as she forced the innocent princess towards orgasm, stifling the girl's soaring cries and desperate moans, taking advantage of the situation to fulfill her long-held dream of shutting the younger girl up. Of course, there had been more pragmatic reasons, too. "You were going to wake half the inn if you kept making noise like that. Have a little consideration for others."

Blushing furiously, almost as much so as when she had reached her apex, Alisha averted her eyes. "Can you untie me now? My arms are aching..."

"Sure. 'Thanks, Rose, I really appreciate you making a woman out of me while asking nothing in return. Thanks for getting your hand all sticky for little old me.' No problem, princess!" Only half-serious, Rose reached up to the headboard and tugged at the knots pinning Alisha's wrists there, loosening them enough for the other girl to slip her hands out of the tight loops of cloth.

"...Thank you." Still not quite able to look Rose in the eye, the full implication of what had just happened between them only just hitting her now that the lust was fading away, Alisha slowly gathered her wits, attempting to process the whirl of feelings spinning through her mind. She didn't know what to think, of herself, of what she had done, but one thing she knew for sure was that she was deeply grateful to Rose for the experience. Pushing past her embarrassment, she turned her face back towards the other woman, solemn and serious. "Thank you so much, Rose."

"Heh. You're welcome, Alisha." Watching the modest princess twisting about on her fingers had been the most fun Rose had had in a while, even if it hadn't done much for the need she had been nursing herself since before Alisha had ever entered her room. At least she had something new, something _much_ more vivid in her head, to screw herself to as soon as the other girl was out the door. "So, you... you liked it?"

Alisha nodded emphatically, still breathing hard and fast, streaks of golden hair matted across her forehead. "Yes. I... it was scary at first, but I... I very much enjoyed it." There was that practiced decorum again, slipping back into her tone as she slowly recovered from her exertions, and Rose couldn't guess whether it was deliberate or unconscious. "But, um... you were, um..."

The memory of Rose hunched over on the bed with her hands down her own panties brought Alisha's attempt at formality undone, and she faltered before finally finishing her sentence, skipping over the details of what she had seen. "Don't you need to... to have that, too?"

Rose went still. "What?"

"You did that for me." Mentally cursing herself for _still_ being too childish to mention the act of sex by name, even after sharing it with Rose, Alisha pushed herself into a sitting position with still-aching arms, at the least no longer self-conscious enough to cover herself from Rose's interested eyes. "I think I know what to do now, so if you..." Blushing. Again. Still. "If you want me to try..."

Now it was Rose who was left speechless. That had been the last thing she had expected to come out of innocent Alisha's mouth, and while tonight had _definitely_ been a night for surprises, she wasn't sure if she was ready to have the princess of Hyland's royal fingers inside of her just yet. Or the royal tongue...

_No! Stop it! Stop thinking about it!_

...Although, it _did_ sound better than working out the tension all on her lonesome, with only her memories for company. Besides, she _had_ earned it, and the idea of having pretty princess Alisha fumbling her way through sex for Rose's benefit was more than a little appealing.

Oh, to hell with it.

"If you're sure you want to, then I won't say no." Scooting back on the bed, Rose began to tilt herself backwards, lowering herself to the tangled, sweat-damp sheets, challenging her with a sharp blue stare. "Just take it slow until you get the hang of it, okay? But if you think you're tying me up, you have another thing coming."

As Alisha crawled towards her, experimentally crooking her fingers, golden hair falling loose around her head and spilling over her gloriously naked body, Rose let herself relax as much as her hammering heart would allow. This was weird, wrong on many levels, utterly unbelievable, but somehow she was sure that she could get used to it.

**Author's Note:**

> First published elsewhere on September 30, 2016. Now with additional naughtiness.


End file.
